This page is meant to support your Letters to the Next President 2.0 website experience; find instructional videos and process steps plus definitions. For instructional and teaching resources, see Resources and Opportunities. Please also see our Community Guidelines.
Teachers, mentors, librarians, and other adults are key to the Letters to the Next President 2.0 experience. These adults take the role of Group Administrator, inviting Members/Writers into the website and ultimately publishing the letters. At every Site where youth are writing, one educator will start the process by setting up the Site and serving as Site Administrator. Site Administrators can invite other adults into the Site to serve as Group Administrators and can also manage their own Groups.
Watch teacher Christina walk through the signup a site and group creation process:
How to Sign Up a Site
In the upper right, click on “Register” and read the instructions.
Click on “Sign Up Your Site”.
Fill out the form. Your email address will be your username for logging into the website.
Check the “I’m Over 18 Years Old” checkbox and click “Sign Up Now”.
Our support staff will review your request and approve it as soon as possible. You will receive an email once your Site has been approved.
How to Invite Group Administrators to Your Site (for Site Administrators)
Once your Site has been approved by support staff, log in to the website.
In the right column, enter the email address of who you want to invite to be a Group Administrator and click “Send”.
Alternately, you can create a Group at your site by clicking on the “New Group” button in the blue toolbar just below the search button.
How to Create and Manage a Group (for Site or Group Administrators)
Log in to the website.
Click on the “New Group” button in the blue toolbar just below the search button in the upper right.
Fill in the fields and click “Add Group”.
Once your Group has been created, you will see instructions and a code in the right column. You can share this code in the right column with any youth you want to register to this Group. Each Group has a unique code. We encourage youth to register themselves so they become familiar with logging in and are responsible for their own username and password.
You can manage your Group(s) by clicking on the “Manage Groups” button in the upper right.
Sign-up & Letter Instructions for Members/Writers
Youth aged 13-18 are invited to create their letters by Site or Group administrators. If you are working with youth under 13, please see here.
Watch Ijanae walk through the Member/Writer sign up process, create her letter and submit it to her teacher, Christina:
To Register
A code is needed from your Site or Group Administrator in order to sign up.
When registering, what you enter under “Your Name” is only visible to you and the Site or Group Administrator. This will not be public.
Your email or username, whatever you decide to use, is what you use to log in. An email address is not required to participate.
Don’t forget your username or password!
Writing Your Letter
When creating your letter, your work is auto-saved every 3 seconds. You can also save your letter as a draft and come back to it later.
Remember to tag your submission with the relevant issue(s) before submitting. If you are unsure, choose “Other,” but don’t choose “Other” if you have found tags that work for your post.
Once you submit your letter, let your Site or Group Administrator know so they can publish it for others to read on the public site.
Changes can be made to published or unpublished letters at any time by the Member/Writer who owns the letter, or by Site or Group Administrators.
Publishing Instructions for Writers and Teachers
Only Site or Group Administrators can publish letters to the public website. After a Member/Writer has created a letter, they can submit it to their teacher/mentor for review. At any time, the Member/Writer can go back and edit their letter and re-submit it.
Watch Christina and Ijanae walk through the review and publishing process:
Submission Approval Process
Once a letter is submitted for review, the Site or Group Administrator will receive an email notification.
The Site or Group Administrator can either click the link in the email to review the letter, or log in and click “Manage Group” in the upper right.
Site or Group Administrators can either approve or edit the letter.
Published letters can also be unpublished by the Site or Group Administrator.
Other Reminders for Site/Group Administrators
Make sure you have all your permissions lined up. See Terms of Use.
Site or Group Administrators can add, change, or delete a Member/Writer’s display name, edit any fields of a letter, or edit the issues/tags assigned to a letter.
Once published, each letter becomes public and can be viewed by all visitors to the site. It can also be shared on social media.
Definitions
Site: A Site is a distinct geographic location. If your organization has multiple sites, each site should sign up in order to be geo-located correctly on the big map on the homepage.
Site Administrator: The Site Administrator is a lead teacher, educator, principal, librarian, media specialist, mentor or other adult who is organizing Letters to the Next President 2.0 participation at the Site. The Site Administrators can create Groups and can invite other educators at the Site to be Group Administrators. (See below for details about creating a Site and Group(s).)
Group: A Group is a set of Members/Writers working on letters who will be managed by a Group Administrator. If the Site is a school, a single class will be a Group. There can be multiple Groups at a Site, and each Group is managed by a Group Administrator.
Group Administrator: A Group Administrator can create one or multiple Groups and manage the process for getting Members/Writers signed up. The Group Administrator has one code to give to all of their Members/Writers across all class sections. (See below for details about creating a Group and registering Members/Writers.)
Group Code: Creating a Group generates a code which the Group Administrator can then share with their Members/Writers to register for that Group.
Letter: Can be text, images, audio, video, or any combination thereof.
Title: Should describe the piece and be eye-catching.
Summary: A short description of the piece to give it context.
Issues: Pieces can be tagged with issues to help them sort with other letters on the same topic(s).
Display Name: This is entered when submitting the letter and will be public.
